Intel reveals hypethreading schedules - All 533MHz Pentium 4s will support it

[burek]

Intel reveals hypethreading schedules

 

[NFS4]

Sounds good

 

[AndyHui]

Originally posted by: NFS4
Sounds good

 

[Acanthus]

Soon we will see AMD Threadnow!!! technology

 

[SSXeon5]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
Soon we will see AMD Threadnow!!! technology

ahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahhaha

SSXeon

 

[Krk3561]

What are the benefits of hyperthreading and which existing programs support it?

 

[fkloster]

I thought the app did not have to support it to benefit from it....only hardware needs to support hyperthreading?

 

[Wolfsraider]

woot free hyperthreading for my 2.4b

little ole me didn't know it was my birthday

lol nice

 

[Dug]

woot free hyperthreading for my 2.4b

Doesn't it say that the 3Ghz chips will be the first one's with hyperthreading.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: Krk3561
What are the benefits of hyperthreading and which existing programs support it?

I'll do a major simplification. Hyperthreading is kindof like turning a single processor into a dual processor machine. Basically processors have redundant parts. Hyperthreading allows the processor to do multiple calculations at the same time, thereby utilizing all the parts at once. Suppose a theoretical processor had two integer parts. If a program needed to perform 2 integer calculations, current processors will often do them one at a time. Hyperthreading will allow the processor to do both at the same time. Theoretically this will double the speed during that part of the program. In reality, there is extra overhead when using hyperthreading and there are a lot of operations where there aren't redundancy - so you never get a full 100% improvement. Or maybe a program never needs to do two integer calculations at once - thus it gets no speed boost. Programs that do benefit will get roughly a free 20% speed boost. Programs that don't benefit are still harmed by the extra overhead and get roughly a 10% speed slowdown. Luckilly a programmer can do a quick check at the beginning of the program and decide if it will use it or not (so properly written programs won't get the slowdown).

For a more technical response look at some hardware review websites. I think Anand even had a decent article a while back.

Unfortunately for Intel, if they came right out with hyperthreading - there would be no programs written to do that check. Thus many programs will slow down. So instead Intel is slowly phasing it in - hoping that most programmers will have put this check in on newer programs by the time the consumer gets a hyperthreaded processor.

Also, programs today rarely run in a vacuum (have full control of the computer). Usually multiple programs are running (example: Windows and your favorite game). So maybe Windows needs an integer calculation at the same time your game needs one. This is where hyperthreading could theoretically help out significantly. However the interaction between various programs is far too complex for me to begin to understand...

Programs that support it vary widely.

I thought the app did not have to support it to benefit from it....only hardware needs to support hyperthreading?

The app doesn't have to support it, but if a program will get a speed reduction, it should be properly programmed to avoid this slowdown. All old programs obviously won't have this check programmed in, so many old programs will run slower (unless you disable it in your bios). Even many new programs aren't coded properly and will risk a performance drop. Programs that will benefit don't need to be coded in any special way to benefit. However if they can be coded slightly differently to take full advantage of the redundant parts - then they can maximize the speed boost. Often all that might take is a simple reordering of some code.

 

[Chadder007]

From the article.......
""The A-stepping of the 845G has no HT support. This particular chipset will actively disable HT at boot time, and the 845GL remains a 400MHz FSB, so that won't work either.

Intel will produce a B-step 845G chipset in September which will support hyperthreading. Springdale G/P, and the 845GV, 845GE and 845PE will also support HT by default. Existing 850E and 845E already support hyperthreading by default, with just BIOS enabling needed. ""

ARGH!!!! Maybe we shouldn't have bought the 845G chipset mobo's....instead the 845E's will support hyperthreading through BIOS upgrades!
#*#$(@#

 

[NOX]

Originally posted by: Chadder007
From the article.......
""The A-stepping of the 845G has no HT support. This particular chipset will actively disable HT at boot time, and the 845GL remains a 400MHz FSB, so that won't work either.

Intel will produce a B-step 845G chipset in September which will support hyperthreading. Springdale G/P, and the 845GV, 845GE and 845PE will also support HT by default. Existing 850E and 845E already support hyperthreading by default, with just BIOS enabling needed. ""

ARGH!!!! Maybe we shouldn't have bought the 845G chipset mobo's....instead the 845E's will support hyperthreading through BIOS upgrades!
#*#$(@#

Hehe... I knew I got E for a reason!

 

[ElFenix]

if they're sampling 2.8s i wonder how far a 2.0 overcloxors?

 

[Rectalfier]

Wowza! Put that together with Dual Channel DDR, and I think we got a good match against hammer.

 

[aka1nas]

When is Springdale, the dual channel DDR chipset coming out? I still have 4 256MB PC2100 chips left from when they were $30 apiece and I wanna know if I should wait to go P4.

 

[ravedave]

One thing that alot of people are overlooking is that having hyperthreading around will make people like me (Programmer) start developing more for dual procs. Soon about 40% (80% of the market, 50% celrerons?) of all PC's sold today will look like they have 2 procs. Therefore multi-processing is now somethign that should be thought about while developing. Therefore we will see a huge benifit to machines that ACTUALLY have 2 processors. The more time that goes by the better hyperthreading and dual proc systems will do. Untill now I bet 95% of developers didn't think more than 10seconds about making thier programs better for dual... I have to give it to the Alpha team (whom Intel stole/bought out this idea from), this is a great idea.


-RD

 

[robg1701]

I thinkthe article headline is wrong, since the 3.06 is meant to be the first with the actual HT-enabled setting....its the 533FSb chipsets that support it, not all 533FSB P4's.....if i take whats been said for weeks the correct way.

 

[MadRat]

<<Unfortunately for Intel, if they came right out with hyperthreading - there would be no programs written to do that check. Thus many programs will slow down. So instead Intel is slowly phasing it in - hoping that most programmers will have put this check in on newer programs by the time the consumer gets a hyperthreaded processor.>>

Well said. HT is not the silver bullet that Intel made it sound like. It has a negative impact overall if your software isn't equipped for it, but it will make your system "feel" more responsive. It will also let you do alot of stuff that SMP users have been doing for years now, like burn a CD on an IDE burner while playing Quake3 in the background. All in all its a cool novelty to have. Its just not the solution for competing with HAMMER technology.

 

[CrazySaint]

Originally posted by: robg1701
I thinkthe article headline is wrong, since the 3.06 is meant to be the first with the actual HT-enabled setting....its the 533FSb chipsets that support it, not all 533FSB P4's.....if i take whats been said for weeks the correct way.

Yeah, that's how I read it, too. So other than some info about chipsets, how is this news?

 

[MadRat]

HT has existed in Williamette as reported by Linux buffs a year ago. The fact that all P4's have HT is not something that Intel has denied. If anything Intel has hinted that the Xeon core and Pentium 4 cores are identical except for their pin outs. Intel has adamatitely said that they will not support HT in non-Xeon processors during previous announcements (using famous "at this time" statements...) of the HT technology, leaving the possibility that P4 would have HT in the future.

I get the impression that the pin controlling 533MHz front-side bus clock speed is what Intel is going to use as the "switch" on and off. If the BIOS detects the 533MHz+ front-side bus then HT is turned "on". If it detected a sub-533MHz front-side bus then it is turned "off". If this is the case then the future BIOS settings could be hacked to turn all sub-533MHz front-side bus chips into HT-equipped chips.

 

[Athlon4all]

I would suggest reading the following articles here at AT:

Dual Xeon 2.4's with HT and without HT vs Dual MP 2100+'s
Intel's HyperThreading: Free Performance?

HyperThreading has much potential, but I feel that because it for the most part needs program support to at the very lest keep performance identical with a non-HT system, that HT will never fully take off, not to mention, developers will not want to have to make a HT version of their programs nd a non-HT version (for AMD and older Intel CPU's). We will see, it is a good thing to know that the P4's will support HT in the future, but if it will ever take off, that remains to be seen.